


the violence of the ocean floor

by Jagged



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Anal Sex, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Choking, Double Penetration, F/F, Magic, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Tentacles, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 00:56:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20165485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jagged/pseuds/Jagged
Summary: Azshara will never delude herself enough to believe in peace, but she will, perhaps, admit to a certain fondness for the Lord Admiral, and her efforts towards it.





	the violence of the ocean floor

**Author's Note:**

> please accept this is happening in an EXTREMELY handwavy AU where Azshara ISNT out to release old gods and instead vaguely allied or in a truce with the Alliance. thanks. we're only here for the tentacles.

Among her palaces there are some she keeps preserved from the waters. Half-raised onto islets or woven with magic to trap air even in the deep, forgotten caves carved in great arches and pillars — for nostalgia’s sake, or for the art of it, the odd millennia where she desires a change.

Meeting points, now, an allowance made for her landbound visitors.

Her messengers leave coordinates by the canals or the shores by the fort, which she knows will be passed on — then she only needs to sit back and wait.

It never takes very long.

There are wards she keeps ready for this, that course their signals back to Azshara a few seconds after the portal parts the air, Boralus’ seagreen roofs glimpsed at a distance before folding back in.

The Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras sets her foot down within Azshara’s domain, alone, without a guard.

Azshara watches as the woman turns to observe the great hall she’s landed in, those sharp eyes lingering on the carvings grounding the enchantments that permeate the entire palace and the canals dug along the hallways. When she emerges from the water the Lord Admiral only looks over her shoulder, quickly assessing, before she turns back to her examination of the walls.

“You’ve redecorated.”

“This is a different place from the last one,” Azshara corrects her as she comes to a pause by her side, looking up at the murals through which the magic is carved. Hunting scenes, for the most part. Panthers, and arrows, and a myriad of wild things. “One must have a palace for each season, you understand.”

“Which one was this, then? Autumn?”

“Correct.” Not a very difficult guess, but Azshara is pleased nevertheless. “For a time it was the fashion among my handmaidens to keep birds and great cats at the court,” she murmurs into her guest’s ear. Her hand traces the line of the Lord Admiral’s neck, lingers at the dip of her collarbone. “Their grace and beauty for our eyes, and with the sea around us no need for cages or clipped wings.”

“Until you grew bored of them.”

“They would fight among themselves. Animals bred for the hunt grow dull and mad without worthy prey, do you know?”

“Did you expect otherwise, when you chose to trap them?”

Azshara laughs. “I did not. But it is always a delight to have my expectations exceeded; I hoped.”

She brushes an errant strand of hair from the Lord Admiral’s face, feels displeasure rumble through her like distant thunder.

“I am not your pet, Azshara,” the Lord Admiral warns.

Undeterred, Azshara presses her claws down hard enough to puncture skin, pinpricks of red blooming across the pale lines of her throat. A sudden flash of frost bites at her fingers, the air around them humming with energy. Not yet a threat, but a clear second warning. Azshara acknowledges it; laughs, low and verging on fond, turns her touch gentle to smear the blood in artful streaks.

“But you are very beautiful,” she says, just to watch the woman pause. Charming, how resistant she is to being intimidated; less so the way she shrugs off compliments as though they meant nothing, as though Azshara could not be sincere in this.

(Not a pet, no, not with the power she commands — but sometimes Azshara entertains the thought of keeping her anyway.)

“I hope you called me here for more than just reminiscing.”

“Perhaps I wanted to free you from those diplomatic endeavors you insist on wasting your time with. Or give you the distraction you so clearly need.”

Azshara’s hand drifts to the center of her chest, fingers splayed and dipping under the open collar. Under her palm the Lord Admiral’s heartbeat quickens, but she does not back away, not even when Azshara lifts another hand to her face, knuckles brushing over her cheek and the dark shadows under her eyes.

“You know the Zandalari will never forgive you.”

“It’s not forgiveness I’m after.”

She tips her head back to meet Azshara’s gaze full on, jaw set and eyes cold despite the closeness of their bodies. “We share an enemy — two, if you continue to interfere. It benefits us all to put an end to the fighting.”

“This will be a temporary truce at best.” Azshara expects the Lord Admiral to shake off her hand, at any moment, but it seems she won’t be given the satisfaction today. “Peace will not hold.”

Something unreadable passes over her face, reined in almost instantly.

“I didn’t come here to argue, Azshara. Was there a point to this?”

“My scouts have brought back reports that you will want to see. And I thought I might discuss those titanic wards with you some more, if you were so inclined — ”

That makes the Lord Admiral’s focus snap back up. If it were not so inconvenient Azshara would laud her work ethic.

“— and I was quite serious about distracting you as well.”

Now Azshara puts a hand to the Lord Admiral’s waist, another on her shoulder, as she would a dance partner’s. One of her tentacles curls at her ankle. She waits a second for frost that does not come, and smiles with all of her fangs when she leans her face down.

“Tell me no,” she breathes, a third hand moving to cup the Lord Admiral’s chin.

She’s so close she can almost feel the heat as the woman’s skin flushes. Her muscles shift under Azshara’s hands, shoulders tense then abruptly relaxing.

Through her lashes her eyes are near silver in the low light. Without warning she surges upward, clawed gauntlet hooking at the back of Azshara’s neck to pull her past the last inches of distance separating their bodies.

Jaina Proudmoore, provoked enough, is all teeth, and she is harsh enough in her grip that Azshara can feel the dig of her gauntlet through the dullness of skin remade to withstand deep sea pressures. She growls into the kiss, refuses to let Azshara take control and will not let up until she’s drawn blood to her lips. Only then does she withdraw, narrow-eyed, fierce as a wild-caught hawk.

“Do you think me so easy to handle? A gentle hand, a kind word enough for curb me?”

_I see the way you lean into each touch on the tip of her tongue_ — but Azshara is generous enough to not say it to her face.

“You want this as well, my dear, or you would not be here still.”

Her tentacles pull back, coiling in thick ropes under her. The Lord Admiral’s gaze drops from Azshara’s face to follow their movement; her lips still carry the stain of blood, gleaming and dark.

“Those reports —” she begins, and Azshara knows that she has won.

“Will be there for you in the morning.”

Undoubtedly Azshara will grow tired of this dance in time, of convincing rather than claiming. But for now she relishes the rhythm of it, the slow drag of concessions, the flares of a temper she suspects has been too long buried. Above all, the sweet taste of the Lord Admiral’s capitulation, that proud spine at last bending to something other than work and duty.

To her.

“Very well,” the Lord Admiral says, and Azshara pounces.

Humans are small, so small. It is laughably easy to sweep her off her feet, to catch her as the hawk Azshara likes to think of her as would a sparrow. And how easy it would be to crush her! To press down with only a portion of the strength Azshara holds and feel the slow, painful give of soft tissue and bone, the tender gasp of her breath as Azshara squeezes it from her lungs -

The Lord Admiral swallows hard, throat working against the tentacle that wraps around her neck, a faint shudder running through her when Azshara firms her grip and feels along the knobs of her spine. Her eyes have fallen shut, and Azshara takes advantage to take hold of her wrists. Small, so small... Azshara could immobilize four of her just like this. A mage pinned is like a shark defanged — and Jaina jerks as though to pull away, too late.

Truth be told, Azshara is… tempted. But perhaps not today. She is so taken with dangerous things after all, and not yet bored with this one, and so, her claws wrapped around the woman’s wrists, she only indulges in the satisfaction of prey caught for a moment. Then she bends to whisper a set of coordinates into her ear and sees curiosity chase the fear from that fair face.

“My chambers,” she croons. Her hold over the Lord Admiral’s throat tightens for a second, a promise more than a threat; when Azshara releases her grasp there is a moment where Jaina only catches her breath, eyes glazed, before a look of concentration settles over her features. Magic flares around them, Jaina’s hands adjusting the teleport with exquisite precision, and then they are both swept away, the palace hall disappearing to be replaced by the tapestries of the rooms Azshara had made for her own use.

The bed is new, and perfectly placed to cushion their landing, the soft silks cool under her scales. Azshara congratulates herself on its addition to the decor as she uncoils from the Lord Admiral and sits back to admire the picture she makes, hair a little wild and mouth bruised, the glow of magic lingering in her eyes as she takes in their surroundings: the glass panes above their heads that hold the weight of water, the light faint, reaching them from a distance.

“This _is_ your room.”

“Did you think I would lie?”

“You almost drowned me last time.”

Azshara laughs, the memory a fond one. “I did nothing you did not allow.”

A moment’s pause, again. The Lord Admiral’s hand flexes; as though remembering, her eyes go distant. “No,” she concedes, and returns her focus to the present.

Even disheveled and distracted, there’s something about her that radiates power. What vulnerability there was in her, it is… not gone, exactly. Shored up, scaffolded. If Azshara pushed now she suspects she might actually find herself burned.

So she waits.

Slowly, her gaze held steady on Azshara’s face, the Lord Admiral pulls off her gauntlet and lays it aside. Then she reaches for the pins and buckles of her cloak, which spills from her shoulders. Then her belts, her boots, kicked off with careless disregard for ceremony, and Azshara can hardly bear not assisting. It is one of Jaina’s worst habits (and Azshara can call her this, Jaina when the armor comes off, the braid undone, when she looks softest and about to bare her throat), this human insistence on practicality, layers upon layers when it could be so much more convenient otherwise.

No, she will show restraint and not shred the rest of her clothes.

“May I kiss you?” she asks instead, testing how the question tastes on her tongue.

The Lord Admiral considers this while unbuttoning her shirt. Says: “I think that there are better things you could do with your mouth.”

_Insolent_. Azshara has struck down her subjects for far, far smaller slights, but tonight she is generous, and besides, the Lord Admiral is correct.

When Azshara pushes her down onto the mattress, Jaina only puts up token resistance. The shadow of a smirk pulls at her lips, even as Azshara tugs shirt and skirts off, hips raised accommodatingly so she can get it all out of the way.

Thus bared she is a sight, a pearl Azshara might wish to secure in a vault and bring out to admire or display upon her arms. But a pearl does not have this look, this heated intent, cannot drawl as Jaina does now:

“Well?”

A shudder runs through her body when Azshara presses cool limbs on her skin. She arches the slightest bit into Azshara’s hand as it runs along her flank, ancient patterns and runes traced against the soft skin. Reserved, still, and quiet as a moonless night, but a far cry from the first time Azshara took her to bed, when she was all hesitation and snarls and abrupt pauses despite the want that Azshara could see burning through her.

Now when Azshara puts teeth to her neck she sighs rather than pulls away; now she will allow bruises, and make the most charming noises when bitten, just so, like now, her hand rising to press over the spot after Azshara had moved on. It is behavior Azshara approves of and she lingers, tongue lapping at the bloodied scratches she’d drawn earlier, fangs catching at the edges of the cuts, deepening them in parts.

Jaina hisses at the unexpected sting, shoves. Only sheer surprise prevents Azshara from crushing her on the spot when she fists her hand at the back of Azshara’s crest and yanks back.

Rarely does Azshara allow anyone to touch her face, the softer spots there by her head and neck, and never like this. Bold little human, who stares back when she growls and releases her hold with deliberate slowness. For a moment it seems as though she will apologize for overstepping, and Azshara is ready to tear her to shreds when she does; instead she trails her fingers behind the delicate membrane of the fins by the side of Azshara’s neck, mirroring the way Azshara touched her earlier. Her blunt human nails can’t pierce skin, but the fins are delicate, and there’s heat left where Jaina touches, magic pulsing a steady hum around her, her hand near-burning when she finds Azshara’s shoulder and _pushes_.

A localized shielding spell counters the heat; it shimmers between them, casting a faint purple glow over Jaina’s face before it fades. Azshara shakes off the hand on her shoulder, shifts until their faces once again are level. There’s a challenge in those blue eyes, and a healthy amount of wariness. The latter makes the former tolerable; still, Azshara decides she has had enough of teasing.

“Were you this forceful at the negotiation table today, Lady Proudmoore?”

“What do you care?”

Tentacles once again slide to wrap against Jaina’s arms in tight coils, pulling her hands by her head. She shivers when Azshara strokes the inside of her wrists, gasps when she pulls at her hair to tip her head back. “Only that I wonder if you deal with the rabble the same way you do with the Queen.”

Jaina grins, a reckless baring of teeth. Her throat works beautifully when she swallows, tense line of tendons straining. “A queen. Not mine.”

An amusing statement, from a Kul Tiran. Next time Azshara will come to her on her ship; press her against the mast under the carved krakens’ eyes and the Tidemother’s blessings, make her writhe and beg and acknowledge who truly owns the sea.

For now she thinks it will be enough to make her quiet: puts her claws over Jaina’s lips, nudges until she takes them, wet and warm and only the faintest defiant graze of teeth. Azshara pushes deeper, and Jaina subsides, eyes half-lidded, tongue pressed flat under the pads of Azshara’s fingers. Her moan when Azshara nudges her legs apart is muffled, a low vibration that travels from Azshara’s knuckles to her wrist. Her hips cant, seeking touch, but Azshara holds her down, savouring the sound of protest it draws from her.

“Not so quickly, Lord Admiral.”

A pressure of teeth at her fingers again. Azshara tuts, gives a tug with the hand in her hair as she pushes her fingers deeper, until she can feel Jaina choke and struggle, sharp intake of breath through her nose, body arching under her. Azshara holds her like this until she can see a gleam of tears under her lashes, hears her breath take on a ragged sound.

Desperation, even controlled, is another good look on her. Azshara takes her hand away from her mouth in exchange for a kiss, feels the rapid rise and fall of Jaina’s chest against hers; swallows the moan that drags from her spit-slick lips when Azshara presses a tentacle lower down and finds her wet and yielding.

The noise that comes out of Jaina when she pushes in is hungry, wanting; barely has she felt Azshara in her that she is moving, heels digging for leverage, hips rocking to try and get more. When it doesn’t happen — when Azshara keeps to shallow dips and thrusts, a rare flick at her clit that always draws a hissed curse out of her — she throws her head back, teeth sunk in her lip, her hair a soft halo around her flushed face.

“Azshara…”

“Lord Admiral?”

Her iris has been swallowed up, pupil dilated in the darkness of the room. Only the faintest ring of blue remains, illuminated by the soft bioluminescence of Azshara’s crest. It flares with her annoyance, brightly burning for a second, the magic that seethes under her skin eager to manifest.

“Get on with it.”

Languid, Azshara traces another set of patterns along her flanks. Jaina shifts, sensitive to the drag of Azshara’s claws. Her hips roll, an implicit demand that Azshara is in no hurry to answer. She could do this for hours, long past what human impatience would allow her: watch the play of light through the waves as it filters down, the way it ripples over Jaina’s skin; the soft mammalian curves of her body, the raised lines of scars and stretch marks, as a sculptor might consider the veins and chips in the marble from which she intends to extract her next work of art.

But now Jaina twists and strains against her hold, seeking touch, wanting more, now. Azshara toys with her in a way she knows will be found agonizingly slow, and nowhere hard enough. The tip of her tentacle is wet and gleaming just from her teasing, and there are red lines lingering on the skin of Jaina’s sides, every new drag of Azshara’s claws bringing them out further.

Unexpectedly, Jaina huffs an amused sound, head turning to hide a grin in the silk sheets. Some of the tension drains from her wound-up frame.

“Your teleportation arrays are _sorely_ out of date,” she murmurs. Azshara cocks her head, indulgently curious; she had not quite expected Jaina to be attentive enough to recognize the designs, though she cannot say it is entirely a surprise either.

Light coalesces in her hand where it is pinned under Azshara’s, forms a point that follows the flick of her finger as she redraws it in the air, slowing down where she diverges from the one Azshara just traced on her skin.

“If you stabilize the power like this and reroute it, see, here — the leylines don’t need to be forced, just channeled better —”

Yes, Azshara can follow the logic in the changes. Ultimately the same results, but the arcane bleed off would be limited, the precision vastly improved. With enough power behind it, she thinks this might well allow someone to punch through anti-portal defenses.

“This would be the reason why my wards are so slow to notice you, then?” she asks, interrupting her explanation, and Jaina’s smile takes a sly turn.

Not the only reason, then. It’s times like this when Azshara wonders if she would have been as delightful to have as a foe, had she gone through with some of her old plans. But then she would not have Jaina in her bed, and that would be a shame indeed.

And perhaps she’s made her wait enough.

A kiss pressed onto that smug smile, and Jaina returns it, eager, that earlier stiffness all gone. This time when Azshara fucks into her she does it in earnest, and Jaina keens into her mouth, high and needy. Slow and deep she thrusts, letting her tentacle curl at its tip to seek out the right spot, her reward in the deepening of Jaina’s voice, little hitches of breath on the upstroke.

She’s relaxed in Azshara’s grip, now that she’s getting what she wants. Her hands stay where Azshara set them even when she stops holding her down; her hips roll to meet Azshara’s thrusts midway, push up, insistent.

“The other as well,” she says, a little ragged. Adds: “Please,” and nods when Azshara sets the tip of a second tentacle under the first, testing.

Well, well. Azshara adjusts a stray strand of hair from Jaina’s face as she considers how to best do this, crooning softly as Jaina turns into the touch, warm-blooded and hot against Azshara’s palm.

She sighs when Azshara pulls out of her entirely, the beginning of a frown creasing her brow; bites her lip when she feels that tentacle move down, slick with her own wetness, gasps sharply when it breaches her. Her fingers twist in the sheets, and Azshara can anticipate the _more, faster, harder_ before she even says it.

That is all tempting, save for how Azshara is not inclined to break her anytime soon. A yank on her hips pulls her closer, so Azshara can cup her soft breasts, tease her nipples while she slowly, carefully stretches her out. Jaina moans, shudders, arches. An impatience draws in her. She is so greedy, given the chance; she would take all of Azshara’s limbs, touching or fucking or otherwise on her, no matter that she is not designed for such things, that her body has a landwalker’s frailty.

But then Azshara was much the same, once, wasn’t she?

Jaina grows more quiet as Azshara opens her up, her eyes falling closed. Firm pressure on her clit and ah, there is a sweet moan, a muffled sound that might have been a demand or a plea. Azshara plants two arms above her shoulders, casts her shadow over her even as she presses another tentacle into her cunt, finds her still wet, drenched even. She has less qualms here: fucks her hard, in short, near-violent thrusts that shake her body and must push close to the threshold for painful.

It is not a very long time — though Jaina would surely disagree, had she the breath to speak — before Azshara feels it is safe enough to fuck her properly from both sides. Jaina gasps, head thrown back, her thighs trembling against Azshara’s sides. Blindly she reaches for Azshara, hands moving as though to pull her in; ends up clinging more than anything. Her nails drag at scales and skin, and though the sensation is faint, the gesture instinctual and artless, Azshara finds it rather pleasant.

Now she twists the tentacle, and gets a wild buck of the hips; now she pulls out entirely and then slams back in, and from Jaina comes the most beautifully wrecked sound. Azshara sets to making it happen again, and again, and again, watches as the tension visibly gathers. Gently she passes her palm to clear sweat from Jaina’s brow, then takes her by the hips, the soft flesh sure to bruise later.

Not long now — Azshara can feel it in how easily Jaina lets herself be handled, the wordless sounds she makes as she arches, the feel of inner muscles helplessly tightening around Azshara’s tentacles, an almost static buzz to the air.

“Let go,” Azshara whispers, her mouth a breath away from Jaina’s. The dig of her nails on Azshara’s shoulder deepens, her breath comes in short pants. The scratches Azshara made on her collar gleam dully with blood, in neat, dark lines.

“For me,” Azshara says, and bites down, hard, at the juncture of shoulder and neck. The taste of blood blooms on her tongue. This is what drags Jaina over, finally: her body drawing taut, her hands curled tight, all of her like a drawing back of tides, a hushed shattering. No great spectacle, no raised voice; only a shuddered surrender that draws a sympathetic frisson in Azshara.

It will not be long, she knows, before Jaina finds her voice again. Already Azshara can feel her swallow, sees her wetting her lips when she withdraws her mouth from her skin. A careful twist of her tentacle and Jaina whines, oversensitive. But her thighs pull tighter around Azshara, as though asking stay, and Azshara is quite content to comply in this.

It is a few minutes, in fact, until Jaina finds herself steady enough to speak: “Let me reciprocate.”

“My dear, you wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Then show me.”

Tempting, tempting. But no, Azshara will not make herself so vulnerable. Not today, not even to so endearing a lover. She tells Jaina this, pinning her again to the bed, and feels a curl of fondness, a stir of indulgence in her breast. There is, of course, a protest to this, but Azshara is quite familiar now with the ways of quelling such rebellions. A firm hand, kisses; a careful respect for that which could but does not escape, and instead allows the jesses.

Jaina will be gone in the morning, Azshara is quite aware of this. So she will make good use of the night.

*

“Azshara,” the Lord Admiral calls. It is later. Bruises freckle her neck and sides. Her hair tumbles as foam over the curve of her shoulder, and in the dappled darkness of the room her eyes are slivers of moonlight, bright and flush with power more than her own. “Do not think me so easily distracted. No matter what happens, I _will_ have peace.”

Azshara tries to imagine it — the sea made still, the sky a trembling veil of hail, entire fleets heaving and bursting where the ice bites through sails and rudders and hulls. The heavy moan of ships as they sink, bodies adrift, blue and twisted, human and troll and naga all similar in their end.

And in the depths: only shadows, and silence, and Azshara’s empire no longer bearing the weight of old, dark dreams.

She has opened the seas before, split the sky, made the land tremble. She knows how that sort of power feels, headier than wine and sharp as a drawn blade, the sort of temptation it breeds, a wild and living thing. The Lord Admiral wields no such power, not quite, not yet. But she has the capacity for it, anyone with eyes knows this.

No, Azshara thinks, she cannot say that she believes in such a thing as peace.

But here, in the embers of the morning, she smiles; slithers back to the Lord Admiral still draped over the bed, says “You may try,” and kisses her deep.


End file.
